Read Online A City of Strangers by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online

group, then put them on the two coffee tables so that they could help themselves. She had prepared snacks not too lavish and not too modest—delicious things on cream cheese and cracker biscuits. Lynn always liked her to err on the side of generosity when it came to refreshments, because, of course, they got all their food at a discount from the Foodwise chain. She had prepared, in fact—without being asked or told—exactly what Lynn would have wanted her to prepare.
    Lynn was clearing his throat now.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen, I’ve called together this gathering—with the help of Mr. er, Cartwright, much appreciated—to meet a situation that I for onewould never have foreseen. You could call it a crisis meeting. Mr. Cartwright—Algy—will have told you what this crisis is, and I don’t think I need to spell out the consequences that would follow this family’s moving here: the personal annoyance to ourselves; the risks to our children (I realize that Jennifer and I are the only ones to be faced with that danger at this particular moment in time, but I’m sure you can all appreciate our concern); and there’s also the potentially disastrous drop in property values if one of these houses is allowed—to put the matter bluntly—to become a slum.” He looked around the little group with a gaze of strong-minded concern. “The prospect is horrendous.”
    â€œYou’re right,” said Adrian Eastlake. “Something has got to be done.”
    The remark was both heartfelt yet feeble. It dropped into the atmosphere of the living room with dispiriting effect. Lynn Packard repressed—as he was seldom able to do—his irritation.
    â€œExactly. The question is, what?”
    He had been half-conscious as he spoke that he did not have all his audience with him. Now the dissentient voice spoke.
    â€œI should have thought,” Evie Soames drawled, “that the question in the first instance is not what you should do, but what you can do.”
    Lynn chose to treat this as a purely practical question.
    â€œAh, well—it seems to me that there are some avenues that suggest themselves. First of all, the vendor: Dr. Pickering. He was our neighbor here for—what?—six years. One of us could certainly approach him.”
    â€œBut what would be the point?” asked Jennifer Packard, pricked by some impulse of mischief that had presumably been aroused by her husband’s strain of pomposity. “If he is asking a certain price for The Hollies, and if this man can come up with the money, why should he care about anything else? Market forces rule—OK.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” spluttered her husband.
    â€œIt means that you’ve always been against sentiment entering into what ought to be purely commercial transactions.”
    â€œI wouldn’t call it sentiment—expecting him to have some consideration for us, as ex-neighbors.”
    â€œBut that’s what it is, isn’t it?”
    â€œI’ve always found Dr. Pickering rather brusque.” said Adrian Eastlake sadly. “And so has Mother.”
    Lynn Packard felt the meeting falling apart. He was conscious of the satiric eye of Evie Soames on him.
    â€œMy point is that we have to explore every avenue. Another possibility is the estate agents whose hands the house is in. Another is the building society they’ll be going to for loans.”
    â€œThe same consideration that applies to Dr. Pickering applies to the estateagents,” pointed out Evie Soames, with an obvious relish. “Why should they care? If the Phelans—let’s be brave and give them a name, shall we?—can come up with the money, that’s all they will care about. We’ve no certainty they will need to go to a building society for a loan, and if they do the society won’t need us to tell them their business: Anyone with half an eye